Page:Australian enquiry book of household and general information.djvu/224

 the winter as in the summer, to say nothing of the horses, which, on some places, cost a small fortune for feed in a bad or dry season. Silage stacks can also be made in the open field, though of course the fodder is not so well preserved as in a silo.

The stack should not be built too rapidly, say from four to five feet at each building and leave a few days according to the weather, if very dry, add to the stack in two days because of the top grass withering more quickly and becoming mouldy perhaps. In damp weather there is not so much fear as the grass does not die so quickly, so may be left untouched four or five days. The grass must not be cut till the dew is quite off it and it is dry. About twelve o'clock, or even later, is the best time for cutting as then it can be carried direct to the stack if wished, or time has to be studied, otherwise it can remain on the ground a few hours. If soft it is the better for lying to wither before stacking, but if hard and over ripe it should be stacked at once. During wet weather if one dry day comes it will be sufficient to get in any crop convertable into silage, so that it need not be lost entirely. Always cover the stack at night with a waterproof sheet. When completed it can be pressed or not, if the latter there is likely to be a layer on top that is mouldy and useless, but that is all, and a man loses more than that very often when making hay during a wet season.

The stack can be pressed by placing wires, after a board has been laid over the top, over the stack and winding them up on each side by a windlass (a wire fence straining bracket)fixed to a piece of wood about four feet nine inches long,five inches broad and three inches thick, the bracket being screwed on to the under side, close to the end, with the wire passed through a hole cut for it. These pieces of wood should be laid on the stack when it is only one or two feet high, at intervals of about two feet, then when the stack is ready for pressing, a wire can be put over and attached by each end to each bracket, then by winding the barrels the wire is tightened. The stack should be raised a little in the middle and bits of stick or board must be put under the wire to prevent it slicing the silage like a knife.

Tobacco requires a rich soil and plenty of attention. If you are within easy distance of a factory it is very profitable, but once land has grown tobacco it, for a few seasons, will require very heavy manuring to grow anything else, or else to lie fallow for a year or more. Nothing I know of takes so much out of the soil as tobacco. As an instance I can mention a piece of good land which adjoined my husband's sugar plantation, it had been cropped with tobacco and my husband then rented it for growing sugar, but, in